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Sun, 02 Aug 2015 23:14:05 +0000enhourly1Secrets, lies & government spies: What you need to know about the surveillance “reforms” that just passed the Househttp://www.salon.com/2015/05/14/secrets_lies_government_spies_what_you_need_to_know_about_the_surveillance_reforms_that_just_passed_the_house/
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/14/secrets_lies_government_spies_what_you_need_to_know_about_the_surveillance_reforms_that_just_passed_the_house/#commentsThu, 14 May 2015 09:59:00 +0000Peter Finocchiarohttp://www.salon.com/?p=13964465In an opinion issued by the Second Circuit last week, finding the NSA's domestic phone dragnet unlawful under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, Judge Gerard Lynch laid out certain standards for Congressional debate.

The government had claimed that Section 215 authorized the mass collection of telephone records, an interpretation that the ACLU challenged in court. Writing for the Second Circuit's panel of federal judges, Lynch rejected the government's defense, and in particular its argument that Congress had in fact ratified its expansive legal interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, whether or not they were aware of it, simply by having reenacted the legislation after the surveillance program had commenced.

However, as Lynch pointed out, the program was so much a secret that most members of Congress couldn't have signed off on it:

]]>http://www.salon.com/2015/05/14/secrets_lies_government_spies_what_you_need_to_know_about_the_surveillance_reforms_that_just_passed_the_house/feed/1Noam Chomsky undresses Sam Harris: Stop “pretending to have a rational discussion”http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/noam_chomsky_undresses_sam_harris_stop_pretending_to_have_a_rational_discussion_partner/
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/noam_chomsky_undresses_sam_harris_stop_pretending_to_have_a_rational_discussion_partner/#commentsTue, 05 May 2015 20:30:00 +0000Ian Blairhttp://www.salon.com/?p=13955749Controversial author and new atheist Sam Harris recently tried to "engineer a public conversation" with radical linguist Noam Chomsky "about the ethics of war, terrorism, state surveillance, and related topics." Harris shared the exchange publicly, chalking it up as an "unpleasant and fruitless encounter."

Readers might disagree. By turns contentious and hostile, their dialogue is never anything less than fascinating.

The first volley belonged to Harris, who invited Chomsky to clear the air and clarify any misconceptions the two might have about each other's work.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2015/05/05/noam_chomsky_undresses_sam_harris_stop_pretending_to_have_a_rational_discussion_partner/feed/1920Congress’s Orwellian spying “reforms”: Why the government wants to outsource its surveillance to your Internet providerhttp://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/congresss_orwellian_spying_reforms_why_the_government_wants_to_outsource_its_surveillance_to_your_internet_provider/
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/congresss_orwellian_spying_reforms_why_the_government_wants_to_outsource_its_surveillance_to_your_internet_provider/#commentsThu, 30 Apr 2015 17:13:00 +0000Peter Finocchiarohttp://www.salon.com/?p=13951780Almost two years after publication of the first documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) has taken up a bill that purports to end one of the most widely reported abuses he exposed: the government's secret collection of all the records of phone calls Americans make on a daily basis. Today, HJC will consider the USA Freedom Act, which would finally get the government out of holding the phone records of some significant subset of Americans.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/congresss_orwellian_spying_reforms_why_the_government_wants_to_outsource_its_surveillance_to_your_internet_provider/feed/3“I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light”http://www.salon.com/2014/05/13/i_have_been_to_the_darkest_corners_of_government_and_what_they_fear_is_light_partner/
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/13/i_have_been_to_the_darkest_corners_of_government_and_what_they_fear_is_light_partner/#commentsTue, 13 May 2014 11:50:00 +0000Peter Finocchiarohttp://www.salon.com/?p=13673796On December 1, 2012, I received my first communication from Edward Snowden, although I had no idea at the time that it was from him.

The contact came in the form of an email from someone calling himself Cincinnatus, a reference to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who, in the fifth century BC, was appointed dictator of Rome to defend the city against attack. He is most remembered for what he did after vanquishing Rome’s enemies: he immediately and voluntarily gave up political power and returned to farming life. Hailed as a “model of civic virtue,” Cincinnatus has become a symbol of the use of political power in the public interest and the worth of limiting or even relinquishing individual power for the greater good.

The email began: “The security of people’s communications is very important to me,” and its stated purpose was to urge me to begin using PGP encryption so that “Cincinnatus” could communicate things in which, he said, he was certain I would be interested. Invented in 1991, PGP stands for “pretty good privacy.” It has been developed into a sophisticated tool to shield email and other forms of online communications from surveillance and hacking.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2014/05/13/i_have_been_to_the_darkest_corners_of_government_and_what_they_fear_is_light_partner/feed/87John Oliver to former NSA chief: “The principles of the NSA are built to clash”http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/john_oliver_to_former_nsa_chief_the_principles_of_the_nsa_are_built_to_clash/
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/john_oliver_to_former_nsa_chief_the_principles_of_the_nsa_are_built_to_clash/#commentsMon, 28 Apr 2014 13:10:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13661639In the debut of "Last Week Tonight" on HBO Sunday night, John Oliver demonstrated his interviewing skills with a tough but funny conversation with former NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander regarding the lawfulness and the reach of the agency's widespread surveillance activity. Eventually, Oliver pushed Alexander into a corner, demanding him to consider the implications of hunting through the proverbial haystack to find a needle.

"Peoples's concerns, I think, are that you're not just taking the haystack. You're taking the whole farm, and the county, and the state, and you've now got some photos of the farmer's wife in the shower as well," said Oliver.

When Alexander defended the NSA's activity, saying that Congress and external measures rein the NSA in, Oliver countered: "But you're always going to err, aren't you, in your position, on the side of wanting more rather than less -- to be safe.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/john_oliver_to_former_nsa_chief_the_principles_of_the_nsa_are_built_to_clash/feed/08 biggest “enemies of the Internet”http://www.salon.com/2014/03/22/united_states_joins_china_north_korea_and_iran_as_worst_offenders_of_censorship_and_government_surveillance_partner/
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/22/united_states_joins_china_north_korea_and_iran_as_worst_offenders_of_censorship_and_government_surveillance_partner/#commentsSat, 22 Mar 2014 13:30:00 +0000Ian Blairhttp://www.salon.com/?p=13631448 The United States and United Kingdom achieved the dubious honor of being branded "Enemies of the Internet" for the first time.

Watchdog group Reporters Without Borders released its annual report on which countries restrict access to the internet through censorship and surveillance this week.

Repeat offenders China and North Korea made the list again this year, but the democracies of America and Britain joined the ranks thanks to the National Security Agency and the Government Security Headquarters' activities, respectively.

Another democratic newcomer to the group? India, for its Centre for Development of Telematics.

“The mass surveillance methods employed in these three countries, many of them exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, are all the more intolerable because they will be used and indeed are already being used by authoritarians countries such as Iran, China, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to justify their own violations of freedom of information," the group wrote in its report.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2014/03/22/united_states_joins_china_north_korea_and_iran_as_worst_offenders_of_censorship_and_government_surveillance_partner/feed/15The Big Brother bargain: How government surveillance became easy and cheaphttp://www.salon.com/2014/01/21/the_big_brother_bargain_how_government_surveillance_became_easy_and_cheap_partner/
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/21/the_big_brother_bargain_how_government_surveillance_became_easy_and_cheap_partner/#commentsTue, 21 Jan 2014 16:52:00 +0000Peter Finocchiarohttp://www.salon.com/?p=13581596For more than six months, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) have been pouring out from the Washington Post, theNew York Times, the Guardian, Germany’s Der Spiegel, and Brazil’s O Globo, among other places. Yet no one has pointed out the combination of factors that made the NSA’s expanding programs to monitor the world seem like such a slam-dunk development in Washington. The answer is remarkably simple. For an imperial power losing its economic grip on the planet and heading into more austere times, the NSA’s latest technological breakthroughs look like a bargain basement deal when it comes to projecting power and keeping subordinate allies in line -- like, in fact, the steal of the century. Even when disaster turned out to be attached to them, the NSA’s surveillance programs have come with such a discounted price tag that no Washington elite was going to reject them.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/12/23/edward_snowdens_heroic_work_our_media_must_match_his_courage/feed/50Must-see morning clip: NSA breaks silence on “60 Minutes,” says it’s not spying on Americanshttp://www.salon.com/2013/12/16/must_see_morning_clip_nsa_breaks_silence_on_60_minutes_says_its_not_spying_on_americans/
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/16/must_see_morning_clip_nsa_breaks_silence_on_60_minutes_says_its_not_spying_on_americans/#commentsMon, 16 Dec 2013 13:10:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13558416Months after whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified documents to the Guardian which exposed the agency's massive government surveillance program, the NSA has come forward to explain to skeptical Americans what it does and does not do, in its own words.

Speaking to "60 Minutes," NSA head and U.S. Cyber Command leader four-star Army Gen. Keith Alexander, insisted that the NSA does not use its technology to spy on Americans. "NSA can only target the communications of a U.S. person with a probable cause finding under specific court order," Alexander told correspondent John Miller. "Today, we have less than 60 authorizations on specific persons to do that."

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/12/16/must_see_morning_clip_nsa_breaks_silence_on_60_minutes_says_its_not_spying_on_americans/feed/14Must-see morning clip: The NSA is totally doing that thing they said they’re not doinghttp://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/must_see_morning_clip_the_nsa_is_totally_doing_that_thing_they_said_theyre_not_doing/
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/must_see_morning_clip_the_nsa_is_totally_doing_that_thing_they_said_theyre_not_doing/#commentsTue, 10 Dec 2013 14:30:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13553790Jon Stewart has been keeping a tally of all the lies that the Obama administration has been making about the surveillance activities of the NSA, and it's staggering. "Over the past six months or so," he explained, "Americans have been playing a fun little game with the NSA. The NSA tells us they're not doing something, and then we find out ... ehhh ... they're totally doing it!"

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/must_see_morning_clip_the_nsa_is_totally_doing_that_thing_they_said_theyre_not_doing/feed/18American writers are self-censoring, PEN survey findshttp://www.salon.com/2013/11/12/american_writers_are_self_censoring_pen_survey_finds/
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/12/american_writers_are_self_censoring_pen_survey_finds/#commentsTue, 12 Nov 2013 17:48:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13532569PEN America, a nonprofit that works to advance freedom of expression and speech in literature, has released a disturbing survey that finds American writers are not just increasingly worried about government surveillance as a result of the NSA -- but also engaging in self-censorship. Out of the 528 PEN members who responded to the survey, "Fully 85% are worried about government surveillance of Americans, and 73% of writers have never been as worried about privacy rights and freedom of the press as they are today." Writers are also ""self-censoring their work and their online activity due to their fears that commenting on, researching, or writing about certain issues will cause them harm," the survey finds, on topics such as "military affairs, the Middle East North Africa region, mass incarceration, drug policies, pornography, the Occupy movement, the study of certain languages, and criticism of the U.S. government":

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/11/12/american_writers_are_self_censoring_pen_survey_finds/feed/3Must-see morning clip: Why is Congress surprised that the NSA is spying on…everyone?http://www.salon.com/2013/10/31/must_see_morning_clip_why_is_congress_surprised_that_the_nsa_is_spying_on_everyone/
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/31/must_see_morning_clip_why_is_congress_surprised_that_the_nsa_is_spying_on_everyone/#commentsThu, 31 Oct 2013 13:11:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13521780Congress is outraged (OUTRAGED!!!) that the NSA, an agency built to spy, has been doing just that. But their main concern isn't the spying itself -- it's that Congress wasn't told about the monitoring of world leaders. "They have every right to be outraged, surprised," said "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart. "Well, maybe not every right. No right. They have no right."

Stewart reminded audiences that in 2001, Congress passed the Patriot Act, a sweeping government surveillance bill that granted the NSA access to "any intangible thing," "Our nation's intelligence has to have access to anything except wishes and fairies," he explained. Congress renewed that act twice, failing to limit the "scope and reach" of the act despite many chances to do so.

"If I may," Stewart mocked, "I can't believe you stayed out all night and got drunk, just because I left you with a keg of beer and a note that said 'Do whatever the f--k you want for as long as you want!'"

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/10/31/must_see_morning_clip_why_is_congress_surprised_that_the_nsa_is_spying_on_everyone/feed/1Must-see morning clip: America is spying on everybody. Why are you surprised?http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/must_see_morning_clip_america_is_spying_on_everybody_why_are_you_surprised/
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/must_see_morning_clip_america_is_spying_on_everybody_why_are_you_surprised/#commentsFri, 25 Oct 2013 13:10:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13516208With recent revelations that the NSA has been spying on not just American citizens, but also on other nations, including Germany and France, the rest of the world is understandably less than pleased with the American government.

"So you guys are all upset we're spying on you and drone striking you and you're really upset," levels "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart. "But I just have one question: Have you met us? Meddling in your affairs for our national self-interest is kind of our thing. What part of everything we've done since the Monroe Doctrine don't you get?"

"So look, world, you want an apology?" he asks, unemphatically. "Fine. Sorry...that you forgot we are kind of dicks."

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/must_see_morning_clip_america_is_spying_on_everybody_why_are_you_surprised/feed/20Glenn Greenwald to Jeffrey Toobin: You’re “calling for the end of investigative journalism”http://www.salon.com/2013/07/31/glenn_greenwald_to_jeff_toobin_youre_calling_for_the_end_of_investigative_journalism/
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/31/glenn_greenwald_to_jeff_toobin_youre_calling_for_the_end_of_investigative_journalism/#commentsWed, 31 Jul 2013 16:35:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13394009Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who first broke the NSA story and has written extensively about cybersecurity, argued with New Yorker writer Jeffrey Toobin over the sentencing of ex-Army Pvt. Bradley Manning on "AC360" last night. Manning, 25, was convicted of 17 of 22 charges for leaking classified military information to WikiLeaks, and though he was acquitted for the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, faces up to 136 years in prison.

Toobin largely supported the verdict, saying, "He should be going to prison and he will be," but Greenwald argued that Manning was merely doing the job of an investigative journalist. "If you're sufficiently rich and powerful and well-connected in Washington, the laws don't apply to you. You don't get punished. The only people who do are people like Bradley Manning," said Greenwald. He compared Manning to investigative journalist Bob Woodward, an industry veteran who has reported leaks from Washington officials throughout his illustrious career.

"What Bradley Manning did is the job of journalists, which is to bring transparency to what the government is doing," said Greenwald.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/07/31/glenn_greenwald_to_jeff_toobin_youre_calling_for_the_end_of_investigative_journalism/feed/354Glenn Greenwald to write book on NSA and Edward Snowdenhttp://www.salon.com/2013/07/18/glenn_greenwald_to_write_book_on_nsa_and_edward_snowden/
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/18/glenn_greenwald_to_write_book_on_nsa_and_edward_snowden/#commentsThu, 18 Jul 2013 13:31:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13374539Glenn Greenwald, the reporter at The Guardian who broke the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, has received a book deal.

According to publisher Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, the book will "contain new revelations exposing the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad."

Greenwald, who has covered cyber security issues for nearly a decade, has had rare access to the NSA leaker; he released classified documents and interviewed Snowden before he fled the U.S. Even now, details surrounding the NSA's expansive government surveillance program continue to emerge: Greenwald recently told the AP that Snowden has retained "literally thousands" of documents that contain the entire blueprint of the NSA.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/07/18/glenn_greenwald_to_write_book_on_nsa_and_edward_snowden/feed/31Must-see morning clip: Snowden has NSA blueprint, says Greenwaldhttp://www.salon.com/2013/07/15/must_see_morning_clip_snowden_has_nsa_blueprint_says_greenwald/
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/15/must_see_morning_clip_snowden_has_nsa_blueprint_says_greenwald/#commentsMon, 15 Jul 2013 13:14:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13368814In an interview with the Associated Press, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald revealed that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has retained "literally thousands" of extremely sensitive documents on the NSA that "would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it."

"I think it would be harmful to the U.S. government, as they perceive their own interests, if the details of those programs were revealed," he said.

The AP reports, however, that a source close to Snowden has said that the whistle-blower does not want the documents to be made public.

Tuesday a reader wrote with concerns about how NSA spying revelations have affected his feelings about America. I said that I wanted to take two or three days to answer. It's a big subject, how we feel about the country we live in, and how events change those feelings.

When I was 14 it was 1967 and the Vietnam War was in the newspapers and on TV every day. American males were required to register for the draft when they reached 18; many were being drafted to fight in Vietnam. My brother turned 18 and was drafted. He refused induction and fought it in the courts. It then transpired that the FBI was watching our house and following my brother. There was evidence that our phone was being tapped. It appeared that the power of the state had been turned against us.

The power of the state was turned against many of us in those days. So we grew up with a reasonable respect for the power of the state and a reasonable and mature sense of the state as a dangerous entity that, if it turned against one, could be deadly.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/nsa_lessons_from_the_60s/feed/13About half the Senate skipped classified NSA briefinghttp://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/half_of_the_senate_skipped_this_weeks_classified_nsa_briefing/
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/half_of_the_senate_skipped_this_weeks_classified_nsa_briefing/#commentsSat, 15 Jun 2013 20:18:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13327920America may currently the middle the most intense national debate about data privacy since 9/11, but you wouldn't be able to tell that by looking at the U.S. Senate. The Hill reports that more than half of the senators decided to skip out on a classified briefing on Thursday afternoon with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials.

From the Hill:

The Senate held its last vote of the week a little after noon on Thursday, and many lawmakers were eager to take advantage of the short day and head back to their home states for Father’s Day weekend.

Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity. The room on the lower level of the Capitol Visitor Center is large enough to fit the entire Senate membership, according to a Senate aide.

The Hill doesn't know who attended the briefing and who didn't, but it would be interesting to know what proud father Jeff Flake decided to do.

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/half_of_the_senate_skipped_this_weeks_classified_nsa_briefing/feed/11Privacy versus security: Does the NSA’s surveillance program work?http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/privacy_versus_security_does_the_nsas_surveillance_program_work/
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/privacy_versus_security_does_the_nsas_surveillance_program_work/#commentsSat, 15 Jun 2013 18:50:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13327885Recent revelations over the government's expansive surveillance program has jumpstarted a national conversation on privacy and security long overdue in post-9/11 era. "The fact is," said The Atlantic's Steve Clemons, "that the American public was not dealt in to these questions and now we're having the debate we should have had years ago."

Clemons spoke on Steve Kornacki's "Up with Steve," joined by Ana Marie Cox and Spencer Ackerman from The Guardian, and Washington Post Columnist Matt Miller to discuss the effectiveness of NSA's surveillance program.

While the panelists debated whether the loss in privacy from surveillance results in increased security, Cox posed another relationship between the two ideals:

"It's an imperfect world that we live in, and sometimes I think of privacy and security as being an arm's race. We make strides in one and then make strides in the other. But as we've been talking about this, I wonder if it's more like a market and what's been happening is that the government has been operating in a competition-free market for privacy. You know, they have gone and done all this stuff without like the check of a competition and they've operated in secrecy without people talking about privacy. And now the bubble has exploded."

]]>http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/privacy_versus_security_does_the_nsas_surveillance_program_work/feed/22PRISM part of a much larger government surveillance programhttp://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/prism_part_of_a_much_larger_government_surveillance_program/
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/prism_part_of_a_much_larger_government_surveillance_program/#commentsSat, 15 Jun 2013 13:54:00 +0000pguptahttp://www.salon.com/?p=13327764WASHINGTON (AP) — In the months and early years after 9/11, FBI agents began showing up at Microsoft Corp. more frequently than before, armed with court orders demanding information on customers.

Around the world, government spies and eavesdroppers were tracking the email and Internet addresses used by suspected terrorists. Often, those trails led to the world's largest software company and, at the time, largest email provider.

The agents wanted email archives, account information, practically everything, and quickly. Engineers compiled the data, sometimes by hand, and delivered it to the government.

Often there was no easy way to tell if the information belonged to foreigners or Americans. So much data was changing hands that one former Microsoft employee recalls that the engineers were anxious about whether the company should cooperate.

Inside Microsoft, some called it "Hoovering" — not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans.